In the tanker market, rates on some routes for very large crude carriers, the largest commonly used type, were more than $75,000 a day in early June but closed last week at less than $20,000 a day on one route, according to PF Bassoe, an Oslo-based shipbroker.

Chinese demand for iron ore and coal – the key commodities for the dry bulk market – has slackened in recent weeks. Many tankers have finished long-term contracts to store oil. Both markets have also seen significant ship deliveries.

Denis Petropoulos, a director of London-based Braemar Shipping, said the surprise had been how well the tanker market had held up for most of the year. Slower-than-expected deliveries of new vessels and the use of others for oil storage had boosted rates.

Ships were now finally being delivered and storage contracts were ending.

现在船只终于得到交付，储油合同也已完成。

“It has fallen back to levels we expected it to be for most of the year,” Mr Petropoulos said of the market.

“租费已跌回到我们所预期的、今年大多数时间里应有的水平上，”佩特罗普洛斯这样描述市场。

Johnny Plumbe, chief executive of London-based ACM Shipping, a shipbroker specialising in tankers, said oil demand remained similar to that in the recent past. However, ships coming out of use as storage had competed unexpectedly hard for cargoes.

On dry bulk, Henriette van Niekerk of London-based Clarkson shipbrokers said there were signs the Chinese government was regulating energy-intensive industries more strictly. Falling steel prices and rising iron ore prices had squeezed margins for many Chinese steelmakers.

“The story’s about how they’re managing this differential between the contractual price of iron ore and the steel price,” she said.

“问题的关键在于，它们如何掌控铁矿石合同价格与钢铁价格之间的这一价差，”她表示。

The falls come little more than a year after many tanker and dry bulk owners were struggling to rearrange their finances in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Many are still struggling to pay for expensive ships ordered at the height of the industry’s 2001-08 boom. However, any new problems resulting from the rate falls are expected to fall mainly on smaller, weaker dry bulk owners.

Alun Hatfield of Clarkson said owners’ problems would depend on what prices they had paid for ships – and rates were also still better than often in recent years. “If you look at the 10-year average time charter rates, $25,000 a day is a pretty good rate.”